


Crossroads

by Sky_kiss



Category: Final Fantasy VII
Genre: And maybe smooch, And support each other, Canon Compliant, Character Study, Destiny's Chewtoys try and salvage their mental health, F/F, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Gals being pals, Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Slow Burn, So many spoilers for the end of 7R, Spoilers, and love each other, can't have a ship war when they're all friends, eventually
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-16
Updated: 2020-04-16
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:54:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23687254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sky_kiss/pseuds/Sky_kiss
Summary: "Fate was written," the Planet said. "It could not be unwritten."  Aerith was the means to an end. Tifa was the prize. Cloud had no say in the matter.But they'd done it, hadn't they? They'd changed the future. Post FF7R, spoilers. Just three sad idiots trying to find their way in an uncertain future.
Relationships: Aerith Gainsborough/Cloud Strife, Aerith Gainsborough/Tifa Lockhart, Aerith Gainsborough/Tifa Lockhart/Cloud Strife, Tifa Lockhart/Cloud Strife
Comments: 24
Kudos: 134





	Crossroads

**Author's Note:**

> I just wanted to write some smut. And this is so far from that that I don’t even know how to process what happened. I don’t even know. Have this...whatever. Many spoilers ahead. This will be the most abrupt, snappy, of chapters. Everything after will be cute like. Connected one-shots.

The Planet spoke to her in whispers and dreams.

The predilection comforted her as a girl. Every morning, Hojo would come to collect her mother. Every morning, Aerith was left alone in their meager living quarters. She cried. For herself, for her mother, for that odd sensation of loss coiling in her breast. Life should have been more. Life was cruel. Life was cold. It was needles, so many needles, taking her blood. It was men in white coats gawking at her.

It was the voice in the back of her head, promising it would not always be this way. She'd clung to that truth, cherished it, and cherished that voice too. When she slept, tucked safely against her mother's chest, she would allow the Planet to lull her to sleep. It showed her a cabin, bathed in sunlight. The building was covered in a riot of flowers, a hundred different colors. Aerith preferred each of them to the gray of their cell.

She had no frame of reference for the sun’s warmth (and so the Planet explained). She’d never felt the breeze on her face, or smelt a single flower (and so the Planet filled in the blanks). All things were born of the Planet, and so she shared all things with her favorite (and final) daughter.

As she aged, that comfort dwindled. With time came experience, and reference, and suddenly her dreams were terrifying.

She dreamed of a boy with black hair, tumbling through the roof of the church. The Planet promised she would love him (and lose him). So, she had. Zack returned to the lifestream. The Planet comforted her as she wept. He was safe; he was happy. A selfish part of her railed against the unfairness.

She dreamed of a mercenary with the same Mako colored eyes. He was not vibrant like her soldier. He was sad and silent. He was beautiful; he was broken. All he wanted was a fresh start. The Planet whispered to her about the mercenary, day in and day out.

Cloud would save the Planet. Cloud would save everyone.

Aerith watched his journey in her dreams, young and horrified. He would save everyone. It would cost him everything. It would cost her everything.

She watched herself die, over and over. The Planet whispered of Destiny. 

Fate was written in permanent ink. It could not be erased or changed. It could not be unwritten.

____

She’d tried.

Twenty years old, heartbroken, and still so achingly lonely, she’d been determined to leave Midgar. Zack wasn’t dead. Not yet. He hadn’t come to say goodbye. He hadn’t entered the lifestream. She’d leave Midgar. She’d find him.

Even if she couldn’t, maybe, just maybe, she could prevent the rest of the story from happening.

Aerith made it to the wall. She stared out over the wastelands. The dry earth bled into an equally infinite sky. Midgar’s omnipresent smog could not conceal the vibrancy of its color. In the wasteland, there were no walls or limitations. It was freedom, pure and simple. If she could step out into that place, she would be free of the Planet’s whims. Perhaps Zack would live. Perhaps _she_ would live. Perhaps she could spare Cloud a lifetime of guilt and pain.

She was twenty and terrified. The slums were not so different from her cell in the Shinra Tower. She was still surrounded by metal. There were no stars. Only the plate. The wasteland and its sky terrified her.  


She’d tried, all the same. She couldn’t go back. She had to go forward.

She’d _tried_.

The arbiters were waiting. They were always waiting, hovering around her like tired guardians. They caught her around her arms, her waist, dragging her back into the city. They’d taken a piece of her with them.

She didn't remember the exhilaration. She didn't remember her determination, or her hope, or the urge to see her SOLDIERS.

They left her with fear. Only fear.  
______

It was a funny thing: you could go your whole life without really knowing someone. _Aerith’s_ whole life _depended_ on that truth.

People saw a smiling girl, unaffected by the squalor of the slums. She was bright; she was strong. She was determined to help and be helpful. These were all true facets of her character. They loved her for it. People asked for her help and flocked to her with their problems. She loved helping. She loved being useful.

No one was interested in digging deeper. They didn't ask about the men in suits who would sometimes follow her home. Or why she'd go wide-eyed when she turned down the wrong alleyway. Or why she'd jerk away as if something had grabbed her arm. They wrote those occurrences off as little eccentricities. A haunted, lonely, young woman was less appealing than a free-spirited ingenue.  
She cultivated that aspect of her personality and buried the rest. She flitted from one problem to the next with the same ‘devil-may-care’ levity.

It was for the best. The people she helped? Their lives could still change for the better.

Her fate was set in stone.  
______

Everything happened as it was meant to happen. The Arbiters chased her into the street just in time to cross Cloud’s path. She’d stopped trying to fight them. All she wanted was to keep them from touching her, from _taking_ from her. She couldn’t afford to lose any more of herself.

The Arbiters allowed them to part ways.

Four days later, he’d come crashing through the roof of the church.

He was beautiful. No one in their right mind would have thought otherwise. Cloud stared at her. His eyes were too expressive for a SOLDIER. Beneath all his stoicism, she saw his exhaustion. He’d come to Midgar hoping to start over. He wanted to rest. He wanted the world to forget him.

Neither of them would escape their Destiny.  
_____

Falling in love with him would be the easiest thing in the world. She was certain of it. She saw it in his rare smiles (beautiful, blinding), in the softness he would occasionally turn on her. He’d grumble about helping others; he’d complain it was a waste of time.

He still did it. He protected the weak. He listened to her prattle on. He’d gone so far as to chuckle at her teasing. She loved the sound. It was pleasant, yes, but mostly it was _hers_. She’d _earned_ it, wrestled it from him.

He was broken. He was healing. She could _help_ him.

‘That wasn’t her place,’ the Planet said. She was a plot device in his story. She was his drive. She would never be his love. No matter what she felt; no matter what he imagined.

He smiled at her, shy, beautiful and genuine. All she wanted was to pretend.  
_____

The Planet whispered to her during her waking hours. She watched the Chocobo carriage roll by, and saw a flash of the woman within. Cloud rushed after both.

‘That was the woman he was destined to love,’ the Planet said. Nothing mattered beyond that. Only Destiny. Aerith tried to smile, forcing down her bitterness. It wasn’t fair. To either of them. To any of them.

Aerith was the means to an end. Tifa was the prize.

Cloud had no say.

The Arbiters weren’t even necessary. She wanted to help them. The Planet never showed her Tifa, but that was beside the point. She’d been caged. She’d been kept by men not unlike Don Cornelo. She wouldn’t have left a stranger in such a situation.

And Cloud cared. Whatever he said about their relationship, however confusing or half-formed, he cared for the other woman. The night passed, surreal but...happy. She was happy. She felt seen for the first time in so long.

Tifa smiled at her. The brunette was younger by a year at least, but it would have been hard to guess. Her dark eyes were perpetually tired. She was beautiful, strikingly beautiful, but aged as well. The world had already taken so much from her. It would demand more before the night was over.

She was wonderful. She was kind. Aerith worked to distract her from her fears. She offered her pretty images of shopping trips which would never happen (or would not happen until far, far, later). Tifa hugged her arm. Tifa pressed in close behind her, frightened, as they made their way through the rail yard.

She was perfect, Aerith decided. She deserved happiness.  
______

Everything went as planned.

Destiny said Tifa was the prize, and so her livelihood and her home were taken from her. Aerith stood in the still-smoldering village, smoke burning her lungs, Marlene's hand was delicate in her own. She wouldn't let herself feel afraid. She was the last of the Cetra.

And she would not, could not, die today. 

The Turks took her. Hojo resumed his old games, updated now that she was old enough to understand. They did not kill her. She spent days in that old cell, alone as ever. She wished her friends would abandon her. Hojo could dissect her, breed her, whatever else he intended, but they'd be free.

They’d come for her. They’d come to save her because they wanted to, because they _cared_ for her.

‘Fate was written,’ the Planet said. ‘It could not be unwritten.’

She wanted to warn them so badly. To scream at her friends to get out, getaway. The Arbiters always stopped her. Their wails drowned her out.

Tifa caught her wrist, dragging her away from the specters. _Tifa_ wrapped her up in a tight embrace, nose tucked against her temple. The younger woman was warm. Her skin was tinged with the scent of sweat, but it was pleasant all the same. She couldn’t remember the last time anyone held her. Her mother, maybe. Or Zack. She just knew it was wonderful. For the first time in decades, she could be weak. 

“It’s alright, Aerith. We’re here.”

If they’d left her to rot, things might have changed. They’d be happier if they left her.

The Arbiters would never allow her to say as much. So Aerith nodded, tucking her face in her friend’s throat. Tifa stroked her hair. Cloud watched them, expression bittersweet, before glancing away. She wanted to reach out to him. The woman she’d been only a few days prior would have done as much.

He wasn’t hers to comfort. A little hurt now would save him from so much pain later.  
_____

The future was written in permanent ink. It could not change. It could not be unwritten.

They’d done it.

She remembered the thrill, the terror, of standing on the Midgar expressway two years prior. All those feelings, those memories, the Arbiters had stolen from her came rushing back. Aerith held her head high and marched into the unknown. Her friends were there beside her.

She wanted this; they needed this. The world set before them was unfair and unforgiving. It was selfish to want something for herself but…

...she deserved it. _They_ deserved _some_ happiness.

They threw down Destiny. They stood before Sephiroth in that timeless place. They won.

Aerith pursed her lips, staring back towards Midgar. The sky above her was a brilliant shade of blue. There was no end to it. No walls, no boundaries...that freedom terrified her as much as it exhilarated. Cloud’s voice dragged her from her reverie. It was soft, as gentle as the touch to her upper arm. “C’mon. Need to get moving.”

He was beautiful. Cloud’s eyes were somehow brighter here in the Wasteland. Everything about him was...more at peace. She managed to smile, found it genuine. If her voice quavered, it was only at the start. Aerith was strong; fear never held her back too long. “Alright. Alright. I’m coming.”

He smiled at her. Tifa was somewhere to her right. Aerith turned just enough to offer her arm. If her friend rolled her eyes, it was just a show. She was already in the process of closing the distance, happy to let Aerith hug her arm to her chest.

She was tired. So tired and more than a little frightened. Those emotions married to her excitement. The path before them? It wasn't written. Not yet. They were _free_ to forge a new path, a new life. She felt small in the face of that freedom.

Aerith leaned her head on the other woman’s shoulder. She chewed her lower lip between her teeth. “You didn’t grow up in Midgar, did you?”

Cloud slowed his pace. He fell into step on her right, never quite willing to touch her. Now and again, the back of their hands would brush and a purely girlish warmth would blossom in her chest.  
"Nibelheim."

Tifa nodded. “It was a small town near the mountains.”

“Did you like it?”

He shrugged. “It was quiet.”

"I've never been outside the city. I...never wanted to go." She scrubbed at her arms again. The pollution, the smog...all of it combined to leave Midgar oppressively humid at the best of times. Outside the walls? Her jacket was too thin. Both her and Tifa were liable to freeze. "You're right, though. It's quiet. I don't know what to do with all the quiet." She motioned to the horizon. "Or all that sky."

“You’ll get used to it. Might not ever be comfortable…”

“...but it won’t kill me?” 

He nodded. “Not if you don’t you let it.”

Tifa scoffed. “What Cloud means to say is: we’re here for you. We’re all in this together right?”

They’d all been alone for so long. Even the concept of having someone else seemed fundamentally strange. Aerith chewed her the inside of her cheek. In this new, unknown, future? Together felt right.


End file.
